A place to share my voice on important issues: Celebrating our seniors, grief and loss, middle age, infertility, depression, anxiety and learning to live fully! Faith, ministry, international adoption and special needs. Here's to finding our voices and using them!

And when you think about their humble start, a bulb deep in the ground

in the dark, secret place, from the dust their miracles abound.

The tulips take in the air, light and moisture, too

they grow tall and bloom and become themselves, just like me and you.

So I brought some inside in a crystal vase and arranged them to display.

At the end of a stressful week at home and a chaotic, messy day.

Now the old me would’ve had to straighten, clean and make the table just so.

Before I was able to enjoy the view

everything but the vase of flowers would’ve had to go.

Everything just right! That was the mantra on which I based my life

The problem with that? When things aren’t perfect, your days are filled with strife!

Enough of that, I’m done with that! Let’s do what the tulips do.

They bloom wherever they’re planted,

pretty just as they are wherever they are.

In contrast to the dust from which they were born

their beauty comes shining through.

They reflect the Master Gardener in splendor, as do we.

But once they’ve bloomed and come to be,

what a sight to see!

No matter what’s around them, in dirt, or mud or storm,

or in a vase around a mess

they’ve got living down to a “t.”

They’ve got no excuses or reasons for just not being themselves,

declaring their worth from their Maker and being who He made them to be

and doing their thing and saying their peace for the world His glory to see.

If I could be a flower, A tulip, of course I would be.

Once lying dormant in the dirt and grime,

with much to say, yet all closed up, and worried all the time.

So scared to speak, afraid to shine, except when conditions seemed just right.

Who’d have thought in middle age the time would come

when this bulb would force its way up with might.

God would tell me, “Now open up and show who you really are. Your mind and over thinking, your empathetic heart, I love it all, it’s part of you,” He came to me and said. “Now write your story, write it down, the good parts and the bad. And live your life, don’t wait. Don’t wait a minute longer. One child forever, or one more, in your family, we’ll see. But stop waiting around to live. Try those new things, dream new dreams, celebrate the life you already have. Be beautiful, Be you. If things around you are ugly, still bloom. Be like the tulips. When they’re surrounded by messy, they’re still lovely. The tulips never care.”

And so just like that I came alive. I hope to reflect the Glory of my Maker in all my messy splendor. A tulip in bloom I’ve become. This blog, or rather, my beginning to publish all my writings (some of the pieces I will share were written a long time ago) is happening as a result of God speaking to me, some of it in dreams, and some of it as thoughts in my mind.

A place to share my voice on important issues: Celebrating our seniors, grief and loss, middle age, infertility, depression, anxiety and learning to live fully! Faith, ministry, international adoption and special needs. Here's to finding our voices and using them!

I am the Chief Meteorologist at FOX 9 in Minneapolis; I love my life, love my wife, love my daughters and love my dog...kinda like the cat. I lost a third of my lower lip to squamous cell cancer in 2016...it is now early 2017 and this blog will hopefully serve as my therapuetic writing journey through topical chemotherapy treatment

This is a medium to share my global experience, random thoughts and others’ viewpoints on local and universal issues. It’s an opportunity to learn our differences and similarities, build a sense of community and offer solutions, if possible. Think of conversations over meals, drinks or during seaside walk.